Hello family. How are you all doing today? Has anyone told you that you are loved? Well I will! I am blessed to have someone who tells me he loves me several times a day but such isn’t the case for everyone! If you are blessed like me, pass it on and don’t ever take it for granted! All that is guaranteed, like I mentioned yesterday….is “right now!”

Well last night we had the honor of attending the 2016 Brazos Chamber Orchestra Christmas Program at the First Baptist Church in Cleburne TX (http://brazoschamberorchestra.org/). It was extra special because Kyle’s Dad Tim, a professional grade trumpeteer, was performing with a full orchestra! It’s always a thrill for me when we get to see him perform. We had the added pleasure of being with Kyle’s Mom, his brother John visiting from Delaware and his youngest brother Cole. There was a great turn out! What’s amazing about this is they basically played for the equivalent of tips really. You didn’t have to pay to get in. We paid over $100 to see the Dallas Symphony Orchestra perform the Distant Worlds music and the quality of what we heard last night was on par with that just a different genre of music.

A little before the end, Kyle’s brother John excused himself from the performance. Normally it’s me that run from churches after a point (I don’t do well with lots of energy trapped in a sealed building.) I won’t go into it because it’s personal to John, but sometimes the holiday festivities aren’t something to look forward to. Speaking for myself, the holidays have been a mixed bag for me ever since I was born. My mother committed suicide on Christmas Eve the year I was born….1968. I can remember finding out the cause they gave for her death was post-partum depression and when I found out what that meant I blamed myself from that point on. Post-partum depression or “baby blues” happens after the birth of a child:

Postpartum depression (PPD), also called postnatal depression, is a type of clinical depression which can affect both sexes after childbirth. Symptoms may include sadness, low energy, changes in sleeping and eating patterns, reduced desire for sex, crying episodes, anxiety, and irritability. While many women experience self-limited, mild symptoms postpartum, postpartum depression should be suspected when symptoms are severe and have lasted over two weeks.

Although a number of risk factors have been identified, the causes of PPD are not well understood. Hormonal change is hypothesized to contribute as one cause of postpartum depression. The emotional effects of postpartum depression can include sleep deprivation, anxiety about parenthood and caring for an infant, identity crisis, a feeling of loss of control over life, and anxiety due to lack of support from a romantic or sexual partner.[1] Many women recover with treatment such as a support group, counseling, or medication.[2][3]

About 0.5% to 61% of women will experience depression after delivery.[4]Postpartum psychosis occurs in about 1–2 per thousand women following childbirth.[5] Among men, in particular new fathers, the incidence of postpartum depression has been estimated to be between 1% and 25.5%.[6] In the United States, postpartum depression is one of the leading causes of the murder of children less than one year of age which occurs in about 8 per 100,000 births.[7][8]

Anyhew…..this year is the first year that I haven’t cried decorating the house. Many will say, “You never knew your mother how can you be bothered by it?” I’ll say it like this. It’s kind of like the movie Donnie Darko effect (film) I’ll call it. It’s the knowing someone was in the world that loved you very much, that cared about you and even told you but you were never conscious of it….you just knew they were there. My mother, much like the fictional story of Harry Potter, left her “love print” on me and my soul knew it even after she was gone. We had and still have a bond that transcends the physical realms. It is my belief that after she died, a part of her stayed with me. When I had my first “explosion” in the Barnes and Nobles parking lot in Melbourne FL back in 2002, I felt like the part of her I had been carrying was forced out. I can remember laying on my back after I crawled screaming to a cop nearby. I looked up into the sky and it was so blue and I became part of it. When they asked for my information in the Ambulance I didn’t give me own….I gave them my mother’s.

There are things that happen in our existence, to people like me every day and they go without notice but someone notices. There is a force unseen that notices everything and it is in this force, some would call it God, Universe, Source that everything we ever were and ever will be is connected. Everyone we have ever loved and everyone we have ever been is all mixed into this “energy” I’m always talking to you about. Souls tucked within souls…..travelers. Whether you want to believe it’s true or not, Aunt Ruth, it happened to me. Your sister was a traveler in my soul and she died more than once in me. A part of her fragmented soul found and attached itself to me….who she loved without condition and knew loved her back. I can remember trying to explain things to you and the rest of the family but you didn’t want to believe me. What I was saying went against your beliefs and was coming from someone deemed “mentally unsound” or my least favorite word “crazy.”

I firmly believe that when you “shoot” someone or someone shoots themselves it’s like shooting a glass and billions of fragments of glass going everywhere. For those of you who have ever broken a glass object, you know that you won’t find all of the fragments….they will be found even years afterwards. Such is how I view what happens to the soul when violence is done to it. The fragments of the soul find new homes and “empty bodies with empty minds” are such places a soul fragment might find rest in.

There are people who are alive but “vacant” inside or in my case, “porous” like sponges and we absorb the energy around us which can include traveling soul fragments. I am trying to explain to you something that is a very difficult concept to understand or accept but it’s what I believe from my own experience. Being in mental hospitals was the worst possible experience for me because who goes to such places? People who have lost themselves and are swirling masses of the past and the present in a fluid state. My being around such “scrambled” people and holding on to my own identity is toxic. The best people for me to be around are those who are “fixed” in their personage….confident and assured in who they are and who they have been.

On top of that if you are someone who doesn’t feel “safe” and you are put in a situation with a bunch of strangers and staff who are inconsistent in their governance…..you don’t feel safe and can’t rest. When I’ve been in hospital situations versus being at home, I have never felt safe and being there just aggravates whatever is troubling me. I won’t deny I have needed help “righting my ship” for whatever reason, usually medication related (I HATE PILLS!) but going to the hospital the past 4 times has not been a benefit to me….this last time it validated all my worst fears about said circumstances. My Mother was in such a place around the holidays and they sent her home, from what I’ve been told, heavily sedated. No wonder she freaked out when a snow storm came and she wasn’t going to be with her family! There is much work to be done in the realms of Mental Health ESPECIALLY around the holidays!!!

So the holidays for me were forever altered at the very beginning. For John and others like him later but the care that must be taken to tread lightly has little difference. It’s becoming aware and deciding to actually care….made a rhyme Beth.

Meta

The best symbol to identify me is like the tattoo I have of a chameleon. The best way to understand my spirituality is to take in the beauty of any tree. Everything I need to know about birth, life, death and immortality can be summed up in the life of a tree! I am a creator. If I can figure out a way to make something I see with my own hands I do it. I love to do anything creative - wire bending, writing, drawing, singing, crocheting blankets, photography. I am a very spiritual person...not religious. Mother Nature and all of her creation are my church and spending time outside with her is my greatest therapy. Walking, meditating, praying and doing Tai Chi/interpretive dance in nature is how I pray. My life is an expression of life with the God of my understanding. My God is the energy that made all that is and continues to sustain it.
Some of my mottos: Everything I've ever been through whether it be good or bad has been for a reason. It is my responsibility, when given the opportunity, to share my experience, strength and hope with others who are facing what I've been through. I try to Lead by Example! Life for me is not about quantity, it's about quality. Money is only energy....not life. I feel if one person is positively affected by my writing here....my mission has been accomplished....one tells one....and so on. In the beginning and the end of life all that will ever be meaningfully remembered about you is one thing....Love. Loved and Be Loved.